Identification of plasmid sequences in Micrococcus and Exiguobacterium strains

PADILLA FRANZOTTI, CARLA LUCIANA; KURTH, DANIEL

Barcelona

Simposio; European Student Council Symposium (ESCS 2020); 2020

ISCB Student Council

Plasmids are made up of self-replicating circular or linear extrachromosomal DNA molecules that allow genetic exchange between bacteria and can be the source of genes for resistance to antibiotics and multiple environmental factors.The bacterial genera Micrococcus and Exiguobacterium are of interest for their high resistance to environmental conditions. They have plasmids, although they are poorly characterized, so we consider that their study would be an important contribution to their biology.DescriptionFor each strain studied from the genera Micrococcus and Exiguobacterium, contigs were generated by assembling readings obtained from the SRA-NCBI database. These were processed in four tools for predicting homology independent plasmids: PlasFlow, cBar, Recycler and plasmidSPAdes. Finally we compare our predictions with the PLSDB database, to search for novel plasmid sequences.The assembled genomes were generally fragmented. It was found in 9 Micrococcus strains, 130 sequences that could correspond to plasmids or fragments thereof, of which 78 could correspond to circular plasmids. These sequences averaged 2909.4 bp in length with a GC content of 59.4%. On the other hand, of 6 Exiguobacterium strains analyzed, only 23 sequences were predicted, where 10 could be circular elements. In this case, the sequences averaged 3838.2 bp in length with a GC content of 41.1%.ConclusionsThis preliminary analysis allowed the identification of potentially plasmid sequences in different strains of the bacterial genera studied, which will serve as the basis for subsequent analyzes, with the possibility of creating new genetic tools for the study of plasmidoma.